The Importance of Pedestrians
- Everyone is a pedestrian at some point in his or her daily commute
or travels about O`ahu. Even car drivers must walk once they park their
cars. But in Hawai`i State and City transportation plans and facilities
focus on facilitating automobile (typically single occupant vehicles) mobility,
not pedestrian access and safety.
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- Pedestrians are a city's "indicator species." If pedestrians
are extinct or threatened with harm, the the city is not a successful and
healthy entity.
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- Livable cities and successful transit programs must be based
on programs and facilities that promote pedestrian trips and safety. If
one cannot go to the bus, then how can one ride the bus? The long term
success of Mayor Harris' vision for Honolulu will depend on how well pedestrians
are planned for and treated.
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Data on Pedestrians for
Honolulu and Hawai`i
- The data for pedestrians do not paint a pretty picture for either Honolulu
or the State of Hawai`i. (Source: 1997 MeanStreet Report
by the Environmental Working Group, http://transact.org/mean98/reort/three.htm)
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- The following statements are provided from the Environmental Working
Group report (above).
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- "Millions of people in America walk to school, to work, to the
store, or just around the block for a bit of exercise."
- One of the biggest barriers to people walking more is the fear of traffic."
- "Approximately 28 pedestrians die every year in Hawai`i after
being hit by cars. This is a significant public health and safety problem.
And for every pedestrian who is killed by an automobile, more than 20 are
injured, meaning that approximately 560 pedestrians are injured by automobiles
each year [across the state of Hawai`i]."
- "The average cost to society of a pedestrian-motor vehicle crash
is $312,000."
- "These deaths and injuries are also the consequence [of a] transportation
system gone badly wrong -- a system focused on making the streets safe
for cars instead of making communities safe for people."
- "Part of the problem is that pedestrian safety has always been
a secondary traffic engineering issue." Historically the transportation
engineering profession "classified pedestrians as a traffic 'flow
interruption,' ideally kept off the streets altogether"so that the
only important concern was the rapid movement of more and more automobiles.
(1997 Mean Streets Report, p. 1.)
- "The overriding goal of traffic engineering has been to improve
roadway 'levels of service' (LOS), so that more vehicles may travel at
higher speeds. That often menas designing roads with wide lanes and shoulders,
large turn radii at intersections, passing and turning lanes, and other
features (Ewing, 1995)."
- "Few efforts have been focused on ensuring that the streets are
safe and convenient for both pedestrians and vehicles: fewer still have
sought to modify driving behavior to better protect and accomodate pedestrians."
- The 1998 Mean Streets Report is concerned that pedestrians
are "second-class citizens"when it comes to the amount of safety
spending allotted to pedestrians versus automobile safety. "The attitude
that pedestrian's safety is secondary to driver safety is reflected in
state spending data."
- The majority of the federal highway safety funds or "99.2% of
this money was spent on automobile safety 'improvements'such as road widening
and other efforts to remove the obstacles to more rapid traffic flow."
- "Communities all across the country must demand that public officials
earmark additional funding to ensure pedestrians have safe places to travel."
Pedestrian
Fatalities in Hawai`i
Additional information from the Mean Streets Report about
Hawai`i (some data is a five year rolling average):
- The state percentage of all traffic fatalities accounted for by pedestrians
was 20%.
- Federal safety funding spent on dedicated pedestrian projects was only
$31,600 during 1997 or 0.8% of the total -- statewide.
- The recommended annual pedestrian safety spending target under TEA-21
is $3,365,252 or 20% of these funds.
- Things are no better in Honolulu than the State. Thirty percent (30%)
of all auto-related fatalities are pedestrians during an average year (22
of 74 deaths). Yet, only 3.3% of Federal Safety spending is devoted to
pedestrian safety by the City and County of Honolulu.
- Senior citizens account for 11% of the population but 39% of all pedestrian
fatalities. Seniors are 3.4 times more likely to be victims of pedestrian-motor
vehicle injuries than other age groups. This is especially important since
many seniors can no longer drive automobiles.
- More than half (52%) of all pedestrian fatalities occur on our residential
streets. "The problem is not that pedestrians are walking in the wrong
places, bu tthat our local streets are becoming speedways -- designed to
accommmodate more cars pass through, not the people who live, walk, and
play in their communities."
The 1997 Fatal Reporting System (FARS --ARF) reported that there were
21 pedestrian fatalities in Hawai`i between 1996 and 1997. The elderly
(age 65 and older) made up 9 of these fatalities or 43% of all pedestrian
fatalities in the state.
On the Web: Star Bulletin
articles on mobility issues in Hawai`i
- Waianae
school mourns traffic death, 12/15/98
- Editorial:
A Christmas 'gift' for kids of all ages, 12/19/98
- News: "Third pedestrian to be downed by a
vehicle this week," 1/15/99
- News: "$1 million project aims to reduce Waianae Coast traffic, road risks," by Harold Morse, Star-Bulletin, 1/25/99
- POLICE/FIRE section of News Briefs. See subtitle, "Probe is opened in traffic death." 2/1/99
- Letters to the editor: a twofer! Cyclists write about their perspective. See subtitles, "A bicyclist is safer on road than sidewalk," by J.B. Friday and "Bicyclists, motorists must learn to co-exist safely," by Khal Spencer, 2/2/99
Other mobility related events
and web pages for Hawai`i